Surfside Beach town council votes to rebuild concrete pier

SURFSIDE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - Surfside Beach is taking steps to rebuild their pier after it was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew last October. On Saturday, a team went before Surfside Beach town council and the public to go over three different pier rebuild options. Council did not vote on a specific pier design, but they did decide that the new pier would be concrete.

The pier rebuild team discussed many different topics, including layouts, costs, and estimated annual revenue. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's public assistance program will help fund the new pier. The current FEMA grant estimate is $5.6 million. Depending which layout the town chooses the total cost of a new pier will be anywhere from $10 million to almost $12 million.

Out of the three pier options that were displayed, only one was completely wooden, and two were concrete with wood decking. Both concrete layouts had three buildings at the start of the pier. One of the concrete options included a two floor layout, which means each of those three buildings would have a second floor.

The engineer said all designs would take around the same amount of time to build. The public voiced concerns about pier parking during the meeting.

"If you go down to the pier parking lot, they're circling looking for parking now. So, building more structures that was draw more people and we'll still have the same parking issues. So that's something we need to look at how we will handle parking because it is an issue," said Mayor Bob Childs.

Right now, there is no timeline when council will vote on a final design for the pier.